Continental Report
CONTINENTAL REPORT
B. R. NICHOLLS
IT IS A SOBERING thought that up until 1966, only a warring German nation had stopped the Isle of Man TT races, held each year since 1907. Now, the British seamen’s union has achieved the same end with strike action, and so our sport, which can so easily be the victim of political differences, now suffers at the hands of industrial strife. The rights and wrongs of the matter will not be discussed in this column. We feel the least said, the better.
Total entries for this year’s meeting were 499 over all six classes, an all-time high which could be topped in 1967. So why not start to arrange now for a vacation in the Isle of Man next June?
Will the races be held later in the year? This is a point of much confusion, as the FIM rules state quite clearly that a classic world championship meeting may only be cancelled and not postponed. The two weeks beginning the 22nd of August have been suggested between the Ulster GP and Italian GP, the plan being to go straight from Ireland to the Island, since this is plainly the only practicable time, if the races are to be held.
The meeting could get championship rating if the FIM changes its rules. And there is precedent; the best example of which has just occurred with the Vincent three wheeler project. The FIM, acting on a suggestion of its own committee, advised all grand prix organizers not to accept three wheelers for classic meetings, as they are contrary to what is intended for a sidecar championship. The reasonable argument only makes greater nonsense of another ruling that bans the Honda CB450 from production racing, because double ohc bikes are not allowed in international production machine races. That’s progress. Fortunately, we may well get the chance of seeing Hailwood on a CB450 in a production race later this season, for the bike is allowed under ACU rules.
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With the cancellation of the TT, we are left to speculate on the most interesting aspect of the 500cc world championship. So far, three meetings have been held, but only one of them has had a 500cc class, and that was the West German. At the Spanish and French, the organizers were taking advantage of an FIM rule passed last year that three races were sufficient for a world championship meeting. At the West German, Jim Redman rode the only Honda in the 500 class and won with ease from the MV of Giacomo Agostini. Now, had the TT been held, it is reasonable to assume that Hailwood would have ridden in and won the 500. Mike at present leads both 250 and 350 titles with maximum points, so who is likely to win what in 1966? Hailwood has yet to win a 350 title and Redman similarly a 500. But sentiment does not enter into selling motorcycles, so we may see Hailwood as the first man to wín three titles in one year and four TT races. On present form, there is absolutely no one capable of beating him. . . . So much for the international side of road racing.
Continuing his winning streak is Peter Williams, who rides AJS and Matchless machines for Tom Arter and works at the Greeves factory. However, it was a very unorthodox water-cooled Greeves on which he won the 250 race at the Brands Hatch Camathias memorial meeting. Not a factory bike either, as it has been built by Reg Orpin, but certainly an interesting one that will cause a minor sensation if it fulfills its early promise.
The meeting, which had a strong sidecar element, started with Madame Camathias unveiling a plaque to the memory of her late husband on a marshall’s post close to the spot where the fatal crash took place last year.
The first race was for 500cc sidecars and was won by Colin Seeley, whose outfit was powered by an ex-Camathias engine. It was ironic that the big race of the day should be won by the controversial four-wheeled mini special of Owen Greenwood. In the 125 race Rod Scivyer, Honda, lost his unbeaten record when Dave Simmonds, Tohatsu, beat him. Dave Degens won the 350 race on a HarleyDavidson Aermacchi and the, 500 on a Kirby Metisse, then finished the day with a gutzer at the notorious Paddock Hill bend in the l,000cc race won by John Cooper, who borrowed Rex Butcher’s 500 Norton. Butcher was third on the 647cc Dunstall Dominator behind Derek Minier, Seeley Matchless. The Lance field Nortons are still hors de combat from the two crashes Degens had on them at Oulton.
After Brands came a Mallory meeting, with most of the aces away at the West German GP. It was a meeting which in most respects is best forgotten. It was a day of gales, sunshine and blinding rain, the latter causing some spectacular spills in a sidecar race, when third man home was preceded across the finish line by his outfit — upside down. Scivyer took the 125 race and Peter Inchley was the 250 winner on his Villiers. Rodney Gould won the 350 race and Dave Croxford, Matchless, was top dog in the 500 event by a whisker from Gould. Gould and Croxford are both men with a great future, for they have that quiet determination that makes champions.
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So to the Whitsun holiday meetings, the biggest of which was at Brands for an international. Frank Perris, Suzuki, had a runaway win in the 125 class, while Toshio Fuji, giving the Kawasaki its first English airing, was well and truly blown off by the local scratchers, and could manage no better than seventh. The Kawasaki seemed very fast on the straights, but needs a bit of a hero on board for the twisty bits. Externally, it is similar to the Suzuki, and one wonders how much technical knowledge went to Kawasaki when the ex-Suzuki man joined them.
Straight from the French GP the previous day came Phil Read, Bill Ivy, Jim Redman and Mike Hailwood; the first three were to do battle in the 250 race. Redman was no threat, though, as he only had a twin of rather ancient vintage. Ivy made up for his grand prix faux pas, when he dropped it, by barely winning from Phil Read, who took the lap record. Third place in this, as in the 125 class, went to Tommy Robb on Bultacos. Robb’s favorite trick now is to handicap himself out of all chance of winning, by the reluctance of the Spanish two-stroke to start when everyone else does. Hailwood on a 350 Honda 4, another vintage model, easily won the big race of the day against an army of 500cc British singles. Then Redman borrowed it to finish second to Read, 251 Yamaha, in the 350 race.
Peter Williams, Arter Matchless, won the 500 race with ridiculous ease. Fritz Scheidegger and John Robinson won the 500cc sidecar honors with the Greenwood mini supreme in the 1300 class. Two days earlier, Williams had won the 500 class at Scarborough, where American Marty Lunde finished sixth in the 350 race.
That annual classic, the Scottish Six Days Trial, had the experts looking in the wrong direction, for the winner, after a brilliant ride, was 22-year-old Alan Lampkin. Riding a works 250 BSA, Lampkin lost 27 marks, being four in front of last year’s winner, Sammy Miller, 252 Bultaco. Third for the second successive year was Mick Andrews, 250 Bultaco, a further four behind Miller. These three were well ahead of fourth place man Arthur Lampkin, BSA, who lost forty. Team prize went to the BSA trio of the Lampkin brothers and Scott Ellis.
On the motocross front, Torsten Hallman, Husqvarna, has had his lead in the 250 class cut drastically to eight points by Joel Robert, the Belgian ex-champion. Change in the situation was mainly brought about by an ignition failure in the Dutch round when he was all set for another win and eight points. As it was, he failed to finish and Robert was the winner. At the beginning of the month Robert won in Switzerland from the young Czech Peter Dobry, CZ, with Hallman, third. Then the Czechs had a bitter pill to swallow at their own home round, for Hallman beat all the CZs.
At the West German it was a battle of the big three with Robert, Hallman and Victor Arbekov finishing in that order. At this point, Hallman was still 16 points in front, but then came the fateful Dutch meeting, so that Hallman now has 40 points, Robert, 32, and both Arbekov and Dobry, 16; four different countries are represented in the first four.
In the 500 class, things are looking a little brighter for Jeff Smith, as he has scored his first win of the season. Paul Friedrichs, CZ, made it three wins in a row when he won the Italian round, only to increase this a week later in Denmark, by finishing second to Rolf Tibblin, CZ, of Sweden. In Sweden there was a complete upset of the form book, when Jan Johansson, riding a 360 Lindstrom twostroke, won from another home rider Bengt Aberg, Matchless Métissé. A week later, it was another Johansson; this time the veteran Gunnar, who won the first race in front of Smith. But in the second leg, the BSA ace won by sufficient time margin to gain overall victory. Friedrich’s third place means that he is still top of the table with 34 points; Tibblin, second with 23; Valek, third, with 18, is one point in front of Smith. As in the 250 title, four countries are represented in the first four places, and in both classes, Czech bikes hold three out of four places.
The first 750 motocross meeting has been held in West Germany and the winner was Derek Rickman, 600 Matchless Métissé. But a good idea of the apparent lack of interest in this class stems from the fact that there is a two-month wait until the next meeting.
Sooner or later, the average spectator must rebel against the all-invading twostroke, even if only on the grounds of the monotonous noise they make (witness the fact that no one has yet made a sound story of a motocross meeting).
